Prime Minister Stephen Harper might not have ever heard the old adage about when the cat is away. It might be a good idea if someone explains it to him. It is not that he cannot take the occasional fun trip to exotic lands but he has to get the mice to behave while he is out of town. He needs a deputy cat.
He has been resting up from his and Laureen’s long flight. (Not that they were flying steerage in that VIP personal A310, he buzzes around in.) He can now go read the riot act to the kids in the cabinet. After all, he goes out to eat a little Chinese and there is mayhem in the House of Commons.
We will not get into names here. They are not important and neither are the people involved. The thing is, you can hardly have a cabinet minister thumbing his nose at the Opposition in the House over torturing people. This is definitely not very classy. If the guy cannot keep a state secret, Harper will have to give him the old heave ho. There are lots more cannon fodder on the back benches just begging for a chance at getting the perks of a cabinet minister.
And there is the sad-sack back-bencher from Kitchener, Ontario who brings up the whole abortion thing as soon as Stephen leaves town. Where does he get off? He thinks that there should be a House committee to determine when life begins. All he is doing is trying a back door approach to a debate on abortion. This guy must have some cabinet support to try to pull a stunt like that. And why would they choose a man to bring this up? This guy looks like he posed for American Gothic. Stephen should stomp on him, quick.
And then there is that fat ex-cop Stephen put in charge of the F-35 fighter plane purchase. (Maybe that defence guy, Peter what’s his name, found that file was interfering with his honeymoon.) The ex-cop gets an easy lob type question in the House about delays in the U.S. F-35 development program. The ex-cop was obviously not paying attention. He stands up in the House and said everything is going along swimmingly. Obviously nobody had told him that the Americans had already announced that the program is being delayed because the new planes cannot survive endurance testing. The Pentagon is delaying the program and nobody tells the Canadians?
But Stephen is back. The visit to China obviously went swimmingly. Harper solved a a major problem in diplomacy—all you need to do is discuss human rights with the business people and business with the politicians and everyone is happy. Stephen’s advance people did a wonderful job whipping up enthusiasm and the Chinese looked very puzzled about that.
But we bet it was the Chinese who thought to dress Laureen in the plastic dress so she could hold the panda cub. They would lose face if that bear peed on her. Just think, for a million bucks a year plus special food, your zoo too can have a couple pandas on loan.
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Copyright 2012 © Peter Lowry
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